The present invention relate to a hydropneumatic water engine, in which a dual-acting piston pump operated by a constantly and slowly moving large body of water and which has an operating cylinder coupled to a pressure storage container from which the pressurized fluid is fed into an expansion chamber of a well-known flow machine, such as a turbine.
Since thousands of years water powered machines have been known, which used the energy of a flowing or of a falling surface water for the driving of different work machines, such as mills, water lifting machines, etc. There have also been apparatus and equipment known, in which the movement of the motion, that is the periodic change of the water level caused by the high and the low tides have been made use of.
The known types of contemporary hydroelectric machines embody the different types of water driven turbines. For driving the turbines one requires a higher pressure, i.e., a correspondingly high water flow velocity. There are hydroelectric stations known, in which the height of the waterfall, that is, the level difference between the high water and the low water marks is more than 200 meters. In order to attain the necessary height for the waterfall, that is, in order to have sufficient storage water available, dams are constructed at high cost.